Skittery's Mother
by Written Sparks
Summary: Skittery's mother never loved him but try as he might he can't stop himself from loving her. Part of Skittery Week 09
1. Chapter 1

I.

Skittery's mother never loved him.

Ever since she realized she was pregnant she resented the little life growing inside her. It was never Skittery's fault. His mother was one of those people that could love only one person; themselves. She wanted to be the world's most famous vaudeville dancer and nobody was going to stand in her way, not even her own son.

Skittery was born on a chilly winter morning in the tenement house next to where his mother lived. There was a midwife living there, a robust black woman with shiny brown eyes and a laugh that everyone knew. Her name was Theodora, but everyone called her Tilly. She loved children, she had seven of her own, and she was proud to be the most famous midwife in all of Brooklyn. When she delivered Skittery that cold morning in December she marveled at his wide searching eyes. She told Skittery's mother that she had a beautiful dreamer on her hands. Tilly laughed her hearty laugh when Skittery's mother told her to keep him, she thought she was joking. Tilly never imagined that someone wouldn't love their own son.

Skittery remained unnamed until he was 16 months old, his mother simply called him 'the child'. Finally she decided that the child needed a name and so at 16 months old Skittery was finally named Finn after his mother's favorite fictional character, Huckleberry Finn. In fact 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' was the only book Skittery's mother ever read. Famous vaudeville dancers have no use for books. And so Skittery, when he was old enough to do so, vowed he would never, ever read 'Tom Sawyer', he would rather die.

Skittery tried everything to hate his mother. He thought of all the times she would put on her finest dress, which wasn't that fine, and sashay out the door to the dance hall on the next block, leaving a two-year old Skittery alone with a scrap of fabric as his only toy. He remembered the times she would wake up only to find it hadn't been a bad dream and that a five-year old Skittery really did exist, she'd be so angry she would knock him so hard across the head he saw stars for a week.

She never thought of how he might have felt. She laughed spitefully when he would cower away from her. She would cluck her tongue when he smiled at her. And she would turn away with a grimace on her pretty face when he told her that he loved her. No matter what he did he couldn't make her love him. And no matter what she did she couldn't make him hate her.

Most boys that end up in the Newsboys Lodging House are runaways or orphans. They have abusive fathers, dead mothers, drunk uncles, horrible grandparents. Most boys left their families behind, or had no families to begin with. Skittery wasn't like the rest of the boys at the lodging house, Skittery was the only boy whose mother ran away from him.

Skittery's mother never loved him, yet no mater what, he couldn't hate her.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

Skittery would never forget the day his mother left. When he was very little he knew she didn't love him but he never thought, never imagined, that she would leave. As he grew older he saw her leaving in everything she did.

When Skittery was about seven years-old he knew his routine. Every morning he would get himself up and dressed. He tried to wash thoroughly, scrubbing his face with freezing cold water he had brought inside from the pump. He even washed behind his ears, although he knew no one would ever look there. He would then rush down to the shared toilet on the first floor of their tenement building, hoping that old Mr. Simons hadn't been there first. No one wanted to use the toilet after old Mr. Simons. By the time he got back to his kitchen his mother would be sitting at the crooked table sipping coffee out of a cracked tea cup. She wouldn't even look at Skittery. Most mother's made their children breakfast, even if food was scarce. Skittery always went off to school with a rumble in his tummy, stopping in the market on the way to steal a roll or an apple.

Skittery's mother never knew that her son was smarter than all the kids in his class and the class one year ahead of him. She never knew that he could run faster than Jim Connor, the fastest kid in the school. She never knew that Skittery took the blame once for something he didn't do to save Kellan Reid, a smaller, younger boy, from Mr. Eichel's wooden paddle. And the only reason she knew he was the best speller in the class was because he would walk around the tenement spelling words out loud. 'B-l-a-n-k-e-t,' before he went to bed, and 's-u-p-p-e-r,' when he smelled something cooking on the stove. Finally his mother couldn't take it anymore and she told him to shut up. 'S-h-u-t u-p,' he spelled and his mother thumped him on the head for talking back.

When Skittery's mother started staying out longer at night and leaving earlier in the day he knew she was itching to leave. Skittery knew she was slowly running away, slipping further away from him, so he tried to be on his best behavior. He kept his clothes off the floor, stayed out of his mother's way so he wouldn't bother her, and he scrubbed extra hard behind his ears. But nothing he did seemed to make any difference.

The day was September 7, Skittery couldn't forget that day not matter how hard he tried. He was eight-and-a-half years-old and he could run faster, spell better and be more polite than any other boy he knew. After school every day he would run down to newspaper row and wait with the other boys for the afternoon edition to come out. He usually sold every single one of the 60 papers he normally bought by supper time and then he would run home. His mother always came home from the vaudeville theater at 6 o-clock to make supper. She didn't love Skittery but she made supper every night, out of obligation. And then she would leave again for the rest of the night to dance for paying customers.

But on September 7, when Skittery ran home for supper, his mother was not there. He looked in her room, he looked downstairs at Mrs. Eidermann's place, he looked outside by the water pump, he even waited by the toilet door to see if she was inside, she wasn't, it was only smelly old Mr. Simons. Skittery trudged back up the stairs and sat on the chair with the broken seat at the table to wait for his mother. When she hadn't returned by 9 o-clock he got himself ready for bed and turned down the gas lights, but he could not fall asleep. What if something horrible had happened to his mother? So he got up and got dressed and ran two blocks to the vaudeville theater she always worked at. A pot bellied man with a black mustache told Skittery that his mother had not come to work at all that day and that when he saw her again she was in big trouble. Skittery shook his fist at the man and told him to stay away from his mother, the man just laughed. Discouraged, Skittery sat down on the street corner. He had no idea where his mother could be. An hour or so later a pretty woman with red curly hair came out of the theater, she noticed Skittery sitting alone and asked him if he was alright. Skittery didn't want to talk to anyone, he just wanted to find his mother, but the lady's soft voice and pretty eyes made him tell her everything.

Skittery walked home alone, wiping his tears on his sleeve. The pretty woman with the red hair had told Skittery that his mother had been talking about running away to London to be an actress for a long time. She had been saving money for many years. Nobody she had worked with even knew Skittery existed. When she reached out to hug him, Skittery jumped away. No one had ever hugged him in his whole life. The lady smiled and told him not to be so skittish, she only wanted to make him feel better.

"I will never feel better," he said, hanging his head. "My mother ran away and no one loves me. I will never be happy again."


	3. Chapter 3

III.

On September 8 when Skittery was eight-and-a-half years-old he sold what he could from his tenement home and moved seven blocks away to the Newsboys Lodging House on Duane street. He took with him his most prized possessions; a tall walking stick he had carved himself, two shiny silver dollars and a hand full of smaller coins, two marbles and a battered copy of 'Tom Sawyer', a book he would never read.

Growing up in the lodging house was nothing like growing up in a home with a mother. But Skittery came to prefer the lodging house and the noisy, boisterous boys that he lived with. He liked getting up each morning and pushing for a spot at the sink. He liked old Mr. Kloppman who ran the house and teased the boys and turned a blind eye when they slipped in past closing time. He liked feeling like he belonged. And he liked looking out for the other boys, knowing they were looking out for him.

But Skittery never stopped looking for his mother. He looked at every lady he passed on the street. He jumped when he heard a woman's voice, hoping it was his mother's. He twisted to the left and turned to the right, searching every corner and every alley. The other boys mistook his sudden jumps and shakes as nerves and started calling him 'Skittery.' And no one ever called him Finn again.

When Skittery was fourteen years-old he met a skinny boy called Seek. Rumor was he could find anything you were looking for. Anything. If you wanted something found; a smooth stone the color of your girl's eyes, a perfectly round marble, a two headed penny, you just asked Seek. You name it, he could find it, for a price. So Skittery asked Seek if he could truly find anything.

"Anything," Seek had said with a smug grin and a shrug of his thin shoulders.

"Even missing mothers?" Skittery had asked, expecting Seek to back down, to make up some excuse as to why he couldn't find a missing mother. But Seek hadn't even blinked, he told Skittery it would cost him his walking stick and a quarter. Skittery told him to hurry.

Two days later Seek found Skittery near Central Park selling papers. His mother was in Brooklyn, three blocks away from the house Skittery was born in. Seek told Skittery the address and Skittery dropped thirteen papers at his feet and ran.

Brooklyn hadn't changed a single bit since Skittery had lived there. He had been four years-old when they moved to Manhattan but Skittery remembered the cigar shop on the corner. He remembered Mrs. Eddonry, the lady that sold buttons from a push cart and smiled at Skittery every time she saw him. He remembered the smell of the docks and the fish scales that glittered from every fisherman's boots and clothes. But he could not remember being happy. He had never been as happy as he was now that he lived in the lodging house.

Turning the corner onto the street Seek had told him his mother lived on he saw a woman with a basket of laundry heading his way. She was older than he remembered but he knew her face. It was his mother. When she saw Skittery, grown tall and handsome, she dropped her basket and reached out to touch his face. Skittery jumped back and shook his head.

"I never meant to..." his mother started to say but didn't finish. She didn't know what she had meant to do. "You just..." but she didn't know what Skittery had wanted, needed.

"You were my mother," Skittery said, folding his long arms across his chest. She could see that he had grown from the little boy that had played around her feet, gotten in her way and scared her to death. He wasn't a little boy, he wasn't hers. He had never been hers.

"I didn't need you," Skittery finally said after a few seconds of strained silence. And his mother knew it was the truth. He would never come looking for her again. And she wouldn't miss him. That's just how it was. The mother and the son, two halves of one but complete on their own.

Skittery let his mother go that day in Brooklyn. He turned from her, the sun beating down on his back, the smell of fish in the air. He released the breath he had been holding and started his life over.

Skittery's mother never loved him, but he didn't need her. He was fine on his own.

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone that left wonderful reviews. They really mean a lot to me. And thanks to Laelyn and AdrenalineRush for hosting Skittery Week._


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